Episode 522: Civving Up

This week is a strange one, as snakes are flung at horses to turn them into unicorns, and Paul keeps finding videogame soulmates from the reader feedback. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the Amiga classic Shadow of the Beast, while the Gaming History takes a look back at the Apple Pippin.

This week’s news items include:

• Survey: Female gamers enjoy gaming more than sex
• June 2011 NPD sales figures released
• Publishers spend XBLA budgets, expect retail content
• Gamestop thinks next gen consoles will hit in 2014
• Zynga offered $1B for Popcap
• Ubisoft confirms multiplayer pass system to combat used game sales

Finally, the Question of the Week is “What games do you play in bed?” Yes, it’s been a weird week.